New Haven Independent: Chief Grilled by Black and Hispanic Alders

Chief Grilled by Black and Hispanic Alders

by Allan Appel | October 17, 2007 8:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)

black%20cauc%20007.JPG Sgt. Robert Muller (at right in photo) was in the hot seat as police brass met with black and Latino members of the Board of Aldermen for a policing update, which included remarks by Chief Francisco Ortiz that a “new drug” is behind the latest wave of city shootings.

The meeting, with the board’s Black and Hispanic Caucus, took place Tuesday evening at City Hall.

Discussing the recent spike in shootings, Ortiz said the violence appears not to be narcotics or outside gang related, but the consequence of people who know each other settling petty scores, often turf-related, with an all too easy access to firearms. “Guns,” he said, “are a kind of new drug, and shooting is a sport.”

He rued the continuing lack of cooperation from victims and their families. “Very few of the killings are accidental, and they are not riddles, and many of our victims have worse records than the perps.” He was not pessimistic, however. “We are going to drill down on these cases, and people will eventually come around.”

black%20cauc%20001.JPG About a dozen members of the caucus heard the update on police news. Caucus leader and Hill Alderman Jorge Perez was at pains to say the meeting was not triggered by any specific incident or sense of sense of particular crisis.

Ortiz spoke of how 27 new cops, now in training, will hit the streets in early December, joining 16 new rookies on beat patrol. He said the department’s new tasers are a success. Some 36 “gun-toting” kids of the some 200 identified as the core of the city gun violence engine have been reached and have had successful interactions with city cops, working with the Street Outreach Workers and Yale Child Development professionals, according to Ortiz. And the 11 not yet solved homicides all have “strong suspects,” to use Ortiz’s phrase, though people in the victims’ and perps’ circles are not coming forth with information quite yet to bring prosecution.

Assistant Chief Herman Badger said that a realignment of detectives is occurring so that some of these cold cases are being reviewed by new eyes, and the department is hopeful that prosecutions will be forthcoming.

Sgt. Muller, who runs the emergency (911) and non-emergency police (946-6316) call center, was in the aldermanic hot seat at the meeting. Muller (in the foreground of the photo at the top of this story, with Assistant Chiefs Badger and Stephanie Redding), has been supervising the merging of police and fire call centers.

But the training of the operators and dispatchers — 18 positions — will not be fully complete until next June.

Shorthanded by some six positions and by training not yet complete, Muller acknowledged room for improvement — especially with the non-emergency number — but disagreed with several alders who said calls often went unanswered. “A person, unfortunately, might have to let it ring 30 or 40 times,” he said, “but it will be answered.”

Generally, alders at the meeting expressed satisfaction with the new beat cops — although there, of course, are never enough. There was particular affection for the district managers. “Please don’t, when you consider lieutenant and captain promotions,” pleaded Hill Alderwoman Andrea Jackson-Brooks, “take away our district manager, or you’ll have a revolution on your hands.”

black%20cauc%20005.JPG Fair Haven Heights Alderman Robert Lee (11-D), pictured with Jackson-Brooks, set himself apart somewhat from his fellow alders in his assessment of the current state of community policing.

“The old people in Bella Vista in my district and our youth are not being treated with respect by these new cops,” he said, in an angry call for more people and professional skills for the new recruits. “I’m not against cops, I appreciate cops,” he added, “but when one of my elderly constituents was threatened by people who kept ringing buzzers, and when, finally, a cop arrived and said, ‘Well, of course you’re going to have a problem because there’s no sign saying ‘Solicitations Not Wanted,’ then there’s a problem. With the cops. They need more training and they have to be more visible.”

black%20cauc%20008.JPG Alders such as Fair Haven’s Migdalia Castro (16-D) (pictured with Newhalville’s Alfreda Edwards ) said that no cop comes out when called. Muller said that of the 700 to 800 calls that come in during a 24-hour period, a large number are anonymous — understandably in some cases if a caller sees drug dealing but is fearful of being identified. “Then when an officer goes out to check,” said Muller, “there’s no one to meet them and people think no one was there.”

He and Ortiz described a computer system that checks to make sure that all calls, eventually, are responded to, and none are “wiped out” without authorization. “But we have a long way to go to perfect the system,” said Ortiz, “and to improve our triaging.”

“That’s right,” said Perez, “because all of us know that non-emergency complaints, like people making noise, “can quickly escalate, for example, into a crowd of people chasing a noise-maker down the street to try to kill them. With respect, doing a better job on these calls is some thing we’ve heard about for years. We really need to do it this time.”

As the meeting broke up, Edwards told Ortiz that in her neighborhood, on Starr Street, early in the morning there are “a lot of women out very early and I don’t think they’re putting their kids on a school bus. And there are drugs being sold, too. Not in the flamboyant old way, but these guys with drugs do have guns. Maybe not on them, but underneath a bush nearby.”

Ortiz, and his staff, as they had done throughout the evening, dutifully took notes for follow-up, and exchanged phone numbers.

Comments

Posted by: on whalley | October 17, 2007 8:48 AM

""because all of us know that non-emergency complaints, like people making noise, "can quickly escalate, for example, into a crowd of people chasing a noise-maker down the street to try to kill them."

Ha! I wish. Rather the situation is more like; it's 2AM Monday. I'm headed next door for the 5th time in 3 hours to ask them to keep it down as I have to work in 4 hours. By now they are pretty drunk, high, whatever and I am greeted at the door by three men, two of which have guns. The unarmed individual begins spitting and shouting about my "cracker ass" and refuse to comply with my brand of oppression.

I go home and lay awake until it's time to shower.

What I wouldn't give for just one instance of the neighborhood chasing the noisemakers out with torches and pitchforks.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | October 17, 2007 10:25 AM

Generally, alders at the meeting expressed satisfaction with the new beat cops!!!!!!!!!!!

And were are they!!!!!!!NOT IN CEDAR HILL!!!

BRAVO on whalley!!
Please what a load of ****. this was. No one to meet them?? I was there to meet them...1 hour, 2 hours, 3hours and still waiting for them...till I get a call asking if I still have a complaint!!! Please!!!! Don't insult us!! ! We are the community and we have first hand experiences with the lack of response! And these calls are drug dealing calls!! To me at the least is not a non-emergency call!

Posted by: Your Tax Dollars at Work | October 17, 2007 11:54 AM

A beat cop in Wooster Sq. spends most of his time hiding out and trapping drivers who don't come to a complete stop for a stop sign at a very low traffic intersection. Is this an efficient use of his time?

Posted by: strangerthanfiction | October 17, 2007 1:20 PM

The head of police dispatch says that:"A person, unfortunately, might have to let (the police number)ring 30 or 40 times," he said, "but it will be answered." Please give me a break. How can anyone say that with a straight face? And police top brass wonder why community policing is struggling and why they can't get people to talk. The police don't even answer the phone!! It's a disgrace. Excuse me, but shouldn't that be job #1.

Posted by: charlie | October 17, 2007 5:29 PM

How about if the phone doesn't get picked up within 7 rings, it gets transferred to the Mayor's house.

Posted by: cedarhillresident | October 18, 2007 1:49 PM

strangerthanfiction

I have a trick to make them pick up faster. first you call with your cell phone and while that is ringing you then call from your home phone. They will pick one of them up right away. one night I called 3 times in a row it ran almost 5 min. each call. that is 15 min. total and then I did this trick and they answered.

But I forgot who told me this here but they said just do the 911 so one night I did and it was stranger than fiction (hehe), they were horrified that they were not picking up. So it is not just us it was 911 too.

Posted by: Steve | October 18, 2007 2:34 PM

Does anybody see the out right arrogance this Chief and his key reports have about their role of service to this city. Let it ring 30 or 40 times and hangup if you don't like it!!!

My story is during the summer calling for a pretty serious issue but felt the call probably was a "non emergency". I called 911 and they answered promptly-think that is still run by the Fire Dept Service. They forwarded my call to the police dispatchers, it rang for at least 5 minutes, then it was picked up and I was hungup on instantly. I called back and explained to the 911 operator what happened, he said they never answer before 3 to minutes hoping you'll just go away.

I kept calling and finally got a police dispatcher. I told him of my concern, he said " well we have shootings in FairHaven tonight so I don't think anybody is available tonight". He then hung up. I have combed the news/papers/and web and there is no evidence of any shootings reported that would take all the available police to attend to this claim.

Lastly, the offer of the police officers cell phone is a gimmick intended to put you off, knowing that 95% of the people won't call and that they won't answer that either. It gets them off the spot at the momemt. This is old police tricky!!

Posted by: strangerthanfiction | October 18, 2007 4:39 PM

I've heard it time and again from neighbors- we tried to call something in but couldn't reach the police. We didn't want to call the 911 line because we didn't think it was a real emergency. So lots of stuff goes unreported and things aren't dealt with until they're full blown crises. You can spend as much money as you want on police, but it doesn't mean much if you don't answer the phone when the public calls. Very basic stuff.

Posted by: fairhavener | October 18, 2007 11:43 PM

Of all the things I could write. But I will stick to this because of its utmost importance.

"but I forgot who told me this here but they said just do the 911"

I wrote this to you. It is the only way to place a call to the police and get someone on the phone. I think it goes through to the state police (not sure), then they transfer to NHPD.

911 is for emergencies. But, we are in a state of emergency if the police do not pick up the phone.

Posted by: Been Called Worse | October 19, 2007 4:13 PM

911 does not go to the state first. 911 is answered by fire department, and if it is of a police nature, it gets tranfered to police personnel.

And calling 911 for a NON emergency call is one of the most selfish abuses of the system that I can think of. Granted letting a phone ring 30 times is a disgusting amount of time to wait for a non-emergency call, but maybe the dispatchers are busy at the moment answering all the NON-emergency callers dialing 911.

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Chief Grilled by Black and Hispanic Alders

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